Death and Dying

[matera_goal]

Hey guys, came to post this as I have spent the last 36 hours of my life in a hole of despair.

What came as a result of my usual state of deep thought (I'm not being a w***er - I have a constant philosophical state), a catalyst (a scene from a movie that always sets me off) and a lot of marijuana, I spent from Friday night to Sunday morning in a state of despair.

I spent the entire time not being able to shift my focus away from death. Friday night came with a concept of eternity coming into focus, the (false) realisation that this life would continue forever.

The concept of forever and eternity is very upsetting to me, an example being that if you had a perpetually-powered stopwatch or calendar, that one day it would reach the year 400-billion (400-billion sticking in my mind from a cartoon I had watched as a child).

During the course of the night, I found myself having difficulty to sleep and an extreme depression, thinking about the intricacies of life and death. That I would not know that I had died, there being simply nothing, a light switching off. All memories and intentions gone in a flash. Forever.

Knowing the inevitability of having to deal with this I became very distraught. I spent all of Saturday (beautiful day) lying on a mattress, trying to sleep (unable to do so because of my brain whirring in panic). My state was such I blew off a day at the beach because I couldnt deal with anything. I wanted it to be over, but I didn't at the same time, because I know I wouldn't be coming back.

I woke up this morning about 3am and spent the next 3 hours in a similar state before "properly" waking up, realising that I was only having these thoughts in a dream-like state.

I came up with the notion about an hour ago that if all memory and intention ceases to exist at the point of death, are we all a memory? Is life but recollecting the sequence of events of ones biological lifetime? I cannot pass the concept of simple, total blackout for all eternity. Because death is inevitable, are we all already dead?

I realised that this could not be possible, but the idea is quite thoughtful.

I wondered if anyone else has had profound experiences like this, or am I alone?

Please share your thoughts and opinions.

MG

P.S I think it's just me. I dont want to be thinking like this, I only just turned 16

 

[Clay Davis]

You are having what is known as an existential crisis. You'll probably have them episodically for about 10 years until you decide on a system of thought that rationalises what you eventually have to confront (death), and as such comforts you.

 

[matera_goal]

I don't know what to do. I don't want to have to go through this again.

I feel I would have a very hard time in middle age, I'm sure a midlife crisis would affect me dramatically.

 

[blackcat]

stop smoking the weed for starters, can induce psychosis and schizophrenia if so disposed.

but goodluck if one is genuine, reconciling your issue(s)

 

[Clay Davis]

I don't know what to do. I don't want to have to go through this again.

I'd suggest reading philosophy. Others on here could suggest better authors than I could, but it does remarkable things.

I feel I would have a very hard time in middle age, I'm sure a midlife crisis would affect me dramatically.

Nah, a midlife crisis is different. It is when a man is at the apex of his wealth and realises he has only a few years of 'youth' left that he can milk for all it's worth.

 

[Niximus]

Oh but I bet it absolutely couldn't be the weed...

 

[matera_goal]

I'd suggest reading philosophy. Others on here could suggest better authors than I could, but it does remarkable things.



Nah, a midlife crisis is different. It is when a man is at the apex of his wealth and realises he has only a few years of 'youth' left that he can milk for all it's worth.

I think the same term could refer to different things. The one I'm referring to is about knowing that youth has passed and old age is imminent, not referring to wealth, but life and mortality.

I'm still 24 years away from hitting 40, but it still worries me.

MG

Oh but I bet it absolutely couldn't be the weed...

True, but the effects of this thinking have lasted far longer than the weed.

 

[Clay Davis]

Yeah, I agree. Take a break from the weed if it's doing this to you.

 

[Clay Davis]

I think the same term could refer to different things. The one I'm referring to is about knowing that youth has passed and old age is imminent, not referring to wealth, but life and mortality.

I'm still 24 years away from hitting 40, but it still worries me.

Meh, I see an existential crisis as a realisation of the fundamental futility of life, whereas a midlife crisis pretty much embraces life to its fullest.

Treat this crisis as a midlife crisis - go out and live your life. So, stop smoking weed and go to the beach more.

 

[Delroy]

Oh but I bet it absolutely couldn't be the weed...

Agree only weed smokers get depressed and think about dying. Everyone else live in a happy magical flower land.

 

[Simon_Nesbit]

"Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration – that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather."

Bill knows. (well, knew...RIP).

 

[Oakland Raider]

I like hypotheticals. Maybe hydro is not for you.

Jamie Foxx: "If It Had Been My Daughter… Roman Polanski Would Be Missing"

 

[blackcat]

Agree only weed smokers get depressed and think about dying. Everyone else live in a happy magical flower land.

I am a libertarian, all for free choice. However, marijuana has been proven to prompt psychiatric pathologies. May be nothing to do with the marijuana, but if matera_goal is indeed 16, should he not be informed about the potential ramifications of a decision he makes.

All for free choice, but a fully informed choice, at this vulnerable point.

 

[B_GLassi]

"Why should I fear death? When I exist, Death does not. When Death exists I do not." Some greek philosopher.

 

[Illinois Nazi]

I'd suggest you stop worrying about the things you can't control and spend time on the things you can.

Sure, it's all a bit overwhelming, no-one really knows what it's all about and it's a bit of a bummer if you just die and that's it, but there's nothing you can do about it so enjoy yourself while you're alive and hope for the best afterwards.

Oh, and stop with the green stuff. It WILL **** you up.

 

[Rooface]

If you are 16, slow down or you WILL be the second person to die of Cannabis poisoning. Here's proof from a professor of something. You have 20 years left. Really.

By Richard Savill
London
January 21, 2004



A man aged 36 is believed to have become the first person in Britain to die directly from cannabis poisoning.

Lee Maisey smoked six cannabis cigarettes a day for 11 years, an inquest heard. His death, registered as having been caused by cannabis toxicity, led to new warnings about the drug, which is due to be reclassified this month as less dangerous.

"This type of death is extremely rare," Professor John Henry, a toxicologist at Imperial College, London, said after the inquest at Haverfordwest, west Wales. "I have not seen anything like this before. It corrects the argument that cannabis cannot kill anybody."

 

[Corpuscles]

This IS an excellent.... piss take

You are all focused... at your nose.... weed weeed weeed !....like the famous flower pot men!


It will develop ...into a bloody good thread

 

[volcboy]

Many people here a blaming the weed and, while it may have had something to do with the experience, it may have actually been a good trigger for this kind of thinking. I am definitely not advocating adolescents using THC; its long-term medical effects on the developing brain are relatively well known and scientifically documented.

We will all have to face up to death at some point - now or on our death beds, lying and waiting for it to come. Isn't it much better to ponder and consider it now, in a rational state of mind, rather than right as it is happening to you?

As for not worrying about or planning for death (as IN mentioned); we meticulously plan many other meaningless things in our lives (money, holidays, TV viewing, what we're going to wear/eat/read etc), but ignore the more difficult but ultimately important fact of our impending deaths.

As a buddhist, I often meditate on the second of the four causes of renunciation:

Death is real and it comes without warning
This body will be a corpse

Why not prepare for death by thinking about what it will be like lying there and having your life slip away, rather than waiting for the moment it is happening to do so? I know which situation would lead to more fear and terror (the former).

"There is no place on earth where death cannot find us - even if we constantly twist our heads about in all directions as in a dubious and suspect land. If there were any way of sheltering from death's blows - I am not the man to recoil from it, but it is madness to think that you can succeed.

Men come and they go and they trot and they dance, and never a word about death. All well and good. Yet when death does come - to them, their wives, their children, their friends - catching them unawares and unprepared, then what storms of passion overwhelm them, what cries, what fury, what despair!

To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us have nothing more often in mind than death. We do not know where death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death. We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave."

Montaigne

 

[Suspense]

Hey guys, came to post this as I have spent the last 36 hours of my life in a hole of despair.

What came as a result of my usual state of deep thought (I'm not being a w***er - I have a constant philosophical state), a catalyst (a scene from a movie that always sets me off) and a lot of marijuana, I spent from Friday night to Sunday morning in a state of despair.

I spent the entire time not being able to shift my focus away from death. Friday night came with a concept of eternity coming into focus, the (false) realisation that this life would continue forever.

The concept of forever and eternity is very upsetting to me, an example being that if you had a perpetually-powered stopwatch or calendar, that one day it would reach the year 400-billion (400-billion sticking in my mind from a cartoon I had watched as a child).

During the course of the night, I found myself having difficulty to sleep and an extreme depression, thinking about the intricacies of life and death. That I would not know that I had died, there being simply nothing, a light switching off. All memories and intentions gone in a flash. Forever.

Knowing the inevitability of having to deal with this I became very distraught. I spent all of Saturday (beautiful day) lying on a mattress, trying to sleep (unable to do so because of my brain whirring in panic). My state was such I blew off a day at the beach because I couldnt deal with anything. I wanted it to be over, but I didn't at the same time, because I know I wouldn't be coming back.

I woke up this morning about 3am and spent the next 3 hours in a similar state before "properly" waking up, realising that I was only having these thoughts in a dream-like state.

I came up with the notion about an hour ago that if all memory and intention ceases to exist at the point of death, are we all a memory? Is life but recollecting the sequence of events of ones biological lifetime? I cannot pass the concept of simple, total blackout for all eternity. Because death is inevitable, are we all already dead?

I realised that this could not be possible, but the idea is quite thoughtful.

I wondered if anyone else has had profound experiences like this, or am I alone?

Please share your thoughts and opinions.

MG

P.S I think it's just me. I dont want to be thinking like this, I only just turned 16

You're probably just taking your existence way too seriously.

 

[Rosstickle]

A similar thing happened to me when I was 10 (I wasn't smoking weed though). It happened when a teacher was reading us a newspaper article about a bloke slitting a goats throat. I barely slept for a few nights just out of fear.

The way I view it is that death is basically just the same as sleeping, except you don't dream. When you fall asleep (providing you don't dream, which I often don't) you experience nothing really. No thoughts, emotions or feelings. It seems to take an eternity also. This actually made me worry about actually falling asleep which can be quite scary.

I didn't do anything to stop these thoughts and they generally went away after a couple of days/weeks (can't really remember). Try to just find comfort in the fact that you still have so much life to live.

I'll also quote someone, can't remember who said it, but consider this:

Before you were born you were dead for an essentially infinite amount of time, 400 billion years even. Did it bother you then?

When you die it will be essentially the same as you were before you were born, which can be scary when you think about it, but when you actually get there i'm sure you mind too much.

 

[cancat]

You can't not think about the things that disturb you by trying not to think about them. You need to shift your focus to think about things that don't disturb you. What was the happiest day of your life? What are 100 things you really want to do in your lifetime? How can you help others?

Also, if your thoughts become overwhelming, remember that you are not your thoughts - you are the person observing those thoughts. That can calm things down sometimes.

 

[SS_Fury]

deep things for a 16yo to be thinking about...all i could think about at 16 is boobs

 

[matera_goal]

deep things for a 16yo to be thinking about...all i could think about at 16 is boobs

I deeply wish I were like this. I have longed for this simplicity my entire life. I have always felt different from other people because of the way my brain works. It has been like this for a long time, though never to this extreme.

 

[Dry Rot]

I deeply wish I were like this. I have longed for this simplicity my entire life. I have always felt different from other people because of the way my brain works. It has been like this for a long time, though never to this extreme.

Three options:

1. You're dead already, and BigFooty is just another part of Hell. That bike prang when you were 13 was more serious than you thought.

2. This is reality, and it's all downhill from here - so just top yourself now

3. Google that great quote from Jack Lang as quoted by Paul Keating about having much less time than you think, and pull your finger out and go for it.

 

[Moo]

Smoking pot at such a young age is a really bad idea.